12/22/20 - The Nest (2020) - 7+/10
A richly complex but surfacely spartan familial drama, that keeps its thriller roots showing despite fantastic dramatic dye job. There is unease and impending karmic ruin in each cavernous shadow and strained personal connection. It prolongs the tension and subtle inscrutability of this family, keeping you tightly gripping their histrionics through the subtle cryptic spirit of dourness that torments the film.
The expansive landscapes and long shots, placing our characters as minuscule against the oppressive breadth of it all, highlights the emptiness and distance growing within and without well. It does this while also using a slow creeping zoom in the intimate moments; melting into the tense psyche of our characters. It's fascinating and effective visual storytelling.
Pairing with the keen eye, it has perhaps the best use of score in a film this year. It leers around the edges of drama. The beating piano, drums, and strings provide a tautness to this haunting thriller. Lingering drawn out horror tones dance wickedly in the gloomy spaces.
All of this adds to the sense of unnaturalness floating in the ether; a bordering strangeness and constricting ambience. It is affecting and devilishly draws out a whispering mystery. But not a mystery as normally might be portrayed. It is unique, domestic, sad and draining, but never blatantly one thing.
The leads both do tremendous work. Coon is magnetic and involving. Law is playing quintessential Law, but his bluster is exciting and his distinct bubbling unease keeps you poised for the inevitable shit meeting the fan to come.
It is beautiful, beguiling and fairly brilliant, but certainly not for everyone. It doesn’t give simplistic enigmas or cheap answers, and it might displease those that are unprepared for its entangling ingenuity.
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I appreciate that everyone in the family is, and continues to, f*ck up. But unlike your “for the masses” Hollywood standardized formula, we are left without reconciliation or explanation beyond that unit finally bonding. Their shared distress, vulnerability, and unknown for the future doesn’t have them separate and move on towards a normalized pseudo-happy end. No. This, despite the surreal aspects and bleak imaginings, follows a much more natural and realistic culmination; they persevere, and push on. Despite the recognition of each other’s flawed natures and the dire forebodings, they remain conjoined. As would most people, stuck as well as sticking with it; two sides of the same human coin.
